Sunday, February 24

Christopher Booker - The Sunday Telegraph 24 Feb 2008

EU Parliament votes not to take any notice of the people's wishes

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There were surreal scenes in Strasbourg last Wednesday as the European Parliament prepared to ratify the Lisbon Treaty by a huge majority. (It says something for the reverence in which we hold that parliament that not a singleBritish national newspaper bothered to report the fact.)

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Dressed in yellow chicken suits, three protestors against the refusal of EU governments to allow referendums on the treaty were chased round the corridors and up and down the staircases of the futuristic building by 15 burly securitymen trying to arrest them. When Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party and one of the 50 MEPs ofdifferent parties who have been leading the pro-referendum campaign, wassummoned to this fracas, he was interviewed by a television crew.Pointing out that no officials had intervened last month when the parliament wasinvaded by anti-GM Greens dressed as bananas, he asked why it was onlypro-democracy protestors who had to be silenced?At the end of the interview, Anne-Margrete Wachmeister, head of the parliament'saudio-visual unit, gave orders that Mr Farage' s comments must not be broadcast.Overhearing this, Shirin Wheeler, presenter of the World Service's Recordprogramme (and daughter of the distinguished BBC correspondent Charles Wheeler)intervened to say that, unless this order was withdrawn, the BBC would withdraw its parliamentary coverage from both Strasbourg and Brussels. The officialbacked down. Meanwhile in the chamber itself the battle continued.

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When it was proposed that the parliament "would respect the result of the Irish referendum", the only one to be allowed on the treaty, only 129 MEPs (including one Tory, Nirj Deva)supported it, while 499 (including four Tories) voted that the wishes of theIrish people should not be respected. But what if they vote in favour of thetreaty? It is good to know that our democracy is in such reliable hands.

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This Wednesday there will be a mass lobby of MPs at the House of Commons organised by the all-party "I Want A Referendum" campaign. At 2pm I will be at the Central Hall, opposite Parliament, to kick off an afternoon of speeches in support of the campaign, which is also this month staging 10 constituency-wide referendums involving half a million voters. I hope to see a good many Sunday Telegraph readers there.

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Don't mention the £43 billion

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A shock-horror report in last week's Sunday Times, based on the latest annual "barometer" from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), showed that the cost of new regulations to UK businesses, according to Government figures, had soared last year by a record £10 billion.Their total cost since 1998 is a staggering £66 billion. All this, according tothe article, could be blamed on the Labour Government.

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Nowhere did it mention the EU. But a look at the BCC's press release shows that the origin of these regulations were clearly apportioned between the EU and our own Government. And by far the most costly examples, such as the regulations on working time (£16 billion),vehicle emissions (£9 billion) and data protection (£7 billion), all originated from Brussels. Of the top 10, eight were based on EU directives and the remaining two both hada strong EU dimension. These 10 alone imposed a total cost of £43 billion.

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In other words the suffocating cost of these laws can hardly be blamed just on Messrs Blair and Brown. They emanated from what is now in most respects the true government of our country. One can understand why politicians are so anxious to hide this. But why should journalists be quite so ready to follow suit?